The New York Indian Genocide

A Times news article about the sale "last December" of a Manhattan building that was the site of a murder in 1857 concludes as follows:

"I think if one could do an accurate history of every building in New York, it probably was the scene of a murder at some point or another," said Leonard Steinberg, the president of Urban Compass, a real estate brokerage firm. "For some there is a stigma to this and for many it is considered a point of interest and fascination."

"I bet we all live on land in New York where mass murders of Indians took place," he added.

It's not clear why the Times would choose to pass along such unfounded accusations. There are about 1 million buildings in New York City, according to the City's Department of Finance, which taxes them. The record high year for recorded homicides in the city was 1991, when there were 2,245. But that year was an exception — more recently the number has been in the range of 300 to 500 a year. At 1,000 homicides a year, the city would have to exist for 1,000 years, with homicides distributed equally geographically (which they are not) for there to be a homicide in "every building in New York."

As for "mass murders of Indians," in whose blood the city's soil is supposedly drenched from the Bronx to the Battery, as horrible as the story of the treatment of Native Americans is, there's no evidence of which I am aware that there were "mass murders" of them in New York City. For the Times to pass along the accusation doesn't help anyone understand history any better, and might well confuse the issue.